1. Field of the Invention
This invention and the field of endeavor that it pertains to is a system whereby data bases of accounting and tax preparation data, that is owned by accounting and tax preparation professional services firms, are organized and coordinated in a way that allows 3rd parties to electronically access data directly into their computerized applications without the need to re-key data.
2. Description of the Prior Art
CPA firms (and other professional income tax return preparers) maintain paper files of income tax returns as well as computer databases of such income tax returns. Before a lender will make a loan, the lender will request a copy of several years of income tax returns. Presently, loan applicants must furnish these copies to the lender. The manual process of handling paper income tax returns is slow, costly, and places considerable burden on professional tax preparers because they must furnish clients with copies of returns who will in turn give them to their lender.
This invention and the field of endeavor that it pertains to is a system whereby data bases of accounting and tax preparation data, that is owned by accounting and tax preparation professional services firms, are organized and coordinated in a way that allows 3rd parties to electronically access data directly into their computerized applications without the need to re-key data. By organizing and coordinating these databases, new and unrecognized benefits will be realized by both the accounting and tax preparation firms and end users such as lenders or data mining firms. There is currently no process or method for electronically exchanging tax return data currently in use that resembles this invention.
Previously, the Internal Revenue Service began a pilot program around year 1996 that sought to electronically confirm certain key numbers on a tax return after a request was made by a lender participating in the program. The program did not provide a complete transfer of information on the tax return(s) requested but only certain information such as a taxpayers adjusted gross income. Additionally, if the items sought to be confirmed by a lender differed from the amount confirmed by the Internal Revenue Service, the lender was obligated to provide the Internal Revenue Service with a complete copy of the paper tax return submitted by a loan applicant. The loan applicant was then audited and required to account for the discrepancy.
The Internal Revenue Service program was supposed to be expanded but to date is not widely used (and may not be used at all currently). The reason for lack of acceptance of the Internal Revenue Service program is likely that they have very outdated equipment, an inability to respond quickly because of the sheer size of the organization, a perception of distrust on the part of the public at large, and questions of whether they should be involved with a joint effort with private industry in such a manner at all.
The Wall Street Journal has called the IRS computer system a tangle of 80 mainframe computers, 1,335 minicomputers and 130,000 desktop computers that are largely unable to communicate with each other. So although the IRS could conceivably market its own data-base of information for electronic data interchange and/or data mining, it is likely that it would be unable to do so physically. Computer Sciences Corporation has been granted a contract in December, 1998 to upgrade the IRS computers however the IRS""s own information officer has stated that it could take another 10-15 years to modernize its computer systems.
Presently, each invention of prior art differs materially from this invention. Specifically, the method for acquiring income tax financial data that is electronically transferred from a data source is different than the method proposed with this invention. The data is not keypunched or re-entered into a computer in any way. This method does not involve the scanning of any documents as a method of re-entry also. While the IRS method resembles the patent applied for in some limited respects, it only supplies partial tax return data drawn from IRS data. Additionally, for conventionally filed paper income tax returns, IRS personnel must manually keypunch tax return information into the tangle of IRS computers. This fact would prevent the IRS from rapidly responding to inquiries from 3rd parties such as lenders in a manner timely enough to achieve the verification desired by the lending industry. Currently, not all tax returns can be electronically filed because the Internal Revenue Service is not equipped to receive all returns in electronic format. It is well established that the IRS can takes weeks if not months to process much less acknowledge receipt of tax returns. The accounting profession is in a much better if not ideal position to provide these services. This invention relies on the individual databases of tax return information warehoused at individual accounting and tax preparation firms. These differences in the quality, quantity and specific characteristics of data as well as the origin of the source of data have previously not been recognized or used. This represents a very material difference from all prior art. If there is commercial potential for this discrete tax preparation firm owned data, then it has been grossly under-utilized by the profession at large.
There is commercial potential for income tax data to be exchanged electronically with the financial services industry and specifically the lending industry. There is also commercial potential for using such data in the rapidly expanding area of database mining. This field, DataBase Mining, has the ability to utilize and analyze massive quantities of data to obtain surprising and unexpected results. It has the ability to look at vast amounts of data from multiple sources and find patterns and relationships in the data that are otherwise not readily evident. They remain obscured from ordinary analysis. It is possible that income tax data could be stripped of characteristics that associate it and identify it with a particular individual or entity, and such data could be used in the data mining process. The Gartner Group, Inc. expects the data mining industry to grow to be a $16 Billion a year business by year 2002. Such data could represent an alternative to US Census data because US Census data is updated only once every 10 years. Because of the public relations difficulty and physical obstacles of the Internal Revenue Service becoming involved with selling data to private industry, instead private industry could utilize its own resources to achieve commercial results. It is clear that private industry (and particularly the accounting and tax preparation profession) has not made any connection to the potential improvements and benefits to the fields that this unutilized data may have. In other words, it is not obvious.
The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants has created the CPA Vision Project. The project has identified 7 economic platforms that will affect the profession of accounting in the future. Members of the profession as well as the profession itself are threatened with reduced revenues from traditional services, difficulty in adapting to rapid technological changes in the way the profession provides services, and even the type of services that are provided. Lower level and thus traditional accounting services will be displaced by higher level and higher economic value knowledge based services. By providing a method and framework for organizing the databases owned by the profession, it will advance the reputation, prestige, and utility of services by consumers of accounting and tax services. It is interesting to note that the duration of a utility patent is exactly 20 years, which corresponds to the time span of impact for platform #6 of the CPA Vision Project. Thus the profession will have difficulty maintaining its position as the pre-eminent provider of accounting and tax services during a period of rapid technological change unless the profession embraces methods that improve, enhance, and utilize existing and new resources. Traditional CPA tax services may be eroded by the entry of non-traditional providers of these services. This risk is even greater for solo practitioners and small accounting and tax preparation firms as the accounting profession is faced with consolidating forces. This trend toward large firms is arguably anti-competitive and could negatively affect how such services are priced and delivered. Additionally, it may make it more difficult for lower socio-economic persons to obtain personalized assistance that they need. One of the few remaining buffers between the dizzying bureaucracy of the taxing authorities and ordinary citizens are practitioners who provide personalized service and who know how the system operates. Large consolidated accounting and tax firms would likely exacerbate the problem by further adding to depersonalization in an effort to bolster profits. As a case in point, as of this writing, Cisco Systems said it would invest $1 Billion in the accounting firm of KPMG so KPMG could expand its technology consulting business. It is unclear what impact this would have on smaller practitioners or consumers. However, by providing small practitioners with a new revenue stream as well as enabling them to provide a unique service (that of electronic exchange of tax data) they will have a competitive advantage against both large firms and competition from non-traditional providers of accounting and tax preparation services.
A difficulty with actually implementing a direct electronic exchange of income tax data between firms and interested parties such as lenders or data mining firms is that without some agreement or standard for data format and a pre-determined arrangement for allocating revenues and expenses associated with such a system, natural competitive forces would make differing systems for implementing electronic exchanges of data confusing. The end result would be that either there would be several large companies dominating the arena or any attempts to implement a workable system would be too fragmented. Therefore it makes sense that there is a gatekeeper organization to coordinate and organize all the databases owned by firms to ensure equal access and uniform standards. The gatekeeper would also provide for controls to protect confidentiality, and serve as a clearinghouse for allocating revenues and expenses back to accounting and tax preparation firms. Finally, the data of each accounting and tax preparation firm has less commercial value individually than it has when grouped together with the data of all accounting and tax preparation firms. In other words, massive amounts of data have greater commercial value but all this data needs to be organized and coordinated by a gatekeeper that would be a cooperative clearing house or service bureau.
Several prior art patents have been issued dealing generally with the gathering of financial information. U.S. Pat. No. 5,239,462 issued to Jones et al discloses a method and apparatus to provide the real-time automatic determination of the approval status of a potential borrower of a loan. The Jones et al patent uses facsimile transmissions to quickly determine the approval of a loan application by way of predefined information entered on a form. However, the Jones et al patent does not teach storing information from the different borrowers in a central location to be used for statistical study purposes. The Jones et al patent does not further teach stripping such information of identifiable characteristics so that third parties may use the information without compromising the identity of the individual borrowers.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,274,547 issued to Zoffel et al discloses a system and methods for generating credit reports. A central data processor requests credit information on an applicant from one or more credit repositories through a dedicated data link. A credit report is then generated and transmits the report to the requesting user. Requests and reports are transmitted via a communication system or network. If data is inputted from more than one repository, the central data processing facility eliminates duplicated data. However, the Zoffel et al patent does not teach stripping such information of identifiable characteristics so that third parties may use the information for statistical study without compromising the identity of the individual applicants.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,606,496 issued to D""Agostino discloses a personal financial assistant computer system and method including customer terminals at financial institution branch offices or other locations. Each customer terminal stores financial information for the particular financial services sold at that terminal. At least one representative terminal is provided at a central location and includes a display and keyboard. A telephone link is also provided between the customer terminals and the representative terminals for voice communication. A representative at the representative terminal controls the customer terminal in response to commands initiated from the input device. However, the D""Agostino patent does not teach storing information from the different customers in a central location to be used for statistical study purposes. The D""Agostino patent does not further teach stripping such information of identifiable characteristics so that third parties may use the information without compromising the identity of the individual customers.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,611,052 issued to Dykstra et al discloses an apparatus and method for automatic credit evaluation and loan processing. The apparatus includes a central processing unit which has capabilities for communicating with off-site remote access terminals. The central processing unit is accessed from a remote terminal, loan application information is entered into the remote terminal, credit bureau information is accessed by the apparatus, credit scoring is performed, and a loan application is approved or declined. All steps, except for the entering of loan application information into the remote terminal, is fully automated. However, the Dykstra et al patent does not teach stripping such information of identifiable characteristics so that third parties may use the information for statistical study without compromising the identity of the individual applicants.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,724,523 issued to Longfield discloses an electronic data processing system for preparation of electronically filed tax returns and authorization and payments of refunds based on the data supplied in those returns. Electronic data processing programs are provided for creating an electronic tax return that is filed with a tax collecting authority. At the same time as the electronic tax return is created a loan application is processed to create an electronic deposit/loan account for the tax filer at an authorized credit institution. However, the Longfield patent does not teach storing information from the different tax payers in a central location to be used for statistical study purposes. The Longfield patent does not further teach stripping such information of identifiable characteristics so that third parties may use the information without compromising the identity of the individual tax payer.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,699,527 issued to Davidson discloses a loan processing system to aid a potential loan applicant preparing the necessary financial statement, loan application, and business plan to apply for a business loan. The lending institution then reviews the transmitted information and responds. However, the Davidson patent does not teach storing information from the different applicants in a central location to be used for statistical study purposes. The Davidson patent does not further teach stripping such information of identifiable characteristics so that third parties may use the information without compromising the identity of the individual applicants.
Other objects, features, and advantages of the invention will become more readily apparent upon reference to the following description when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
The invention is a system or apparatus for the electronic exchange of tax data between the financial services industry including the lending industry and/or other interested parties such as data mining firms of such data and the electronic data-bases owned and maintained by individual accounting and tax preparation firms. The exchange should be facilitated by a cooperative service bureau that acts as an intermediary to ensure the smooth flow of information, standardize the data formats, protect confidentiality by providing for controls, and allocating revenues and expenses. The service bureau would also add to the commercial value of the individual firm owned data. The exchanged data would be downloaded directly into applications of end users for analysis thus reducing or eliminating labor and costs due to data entry, filing, etc. A cooperative service bureau could also serve to package income tax data contained in consumer oriented tax software used by individuals to be delivered to other end users such as lenders.
The invention described has many advantages over existing methods and solves problems relating to prior art. By eliminating the use of paper copies of tax returns, costs for accounting and tax preparation firms are reduced by eliminating paper, postage, labor, and time. Users of such tax information save costs for the same reasons. Because information is accessed rapidly, the public is benefited by additional cost savings and faster decisions by lenders and other interested parties. Also, lenders and other interested 3rd parties have some assurance that information received directly from a professional tax preparer has not been altered in a fraudulent manner. The pilot program of the Internal Revenue Service only transmitted certain key numbers whereas this system transmits all tax information as well as certain information never before archived by the Internal Revenue Service. This complete transfer of tax information will enable end users to perform a more complete analysis of a type not currently done. For example, these data would be downloaded into credit scoring software that could make an evaluation of a loan applicant based on many more factors than is currently being used including incorporating data-base mining techniques that would provide much more extensive analysis than that currently in use. Since professional tax preparers data would not be different from data submitted to the Internal Revenue Service by taxpayers, a layer of verification would be eliminated on the part of lenders. It should not be the function of the IRS to seek out fraud in the private sector. A self-policing profession would perform this function by its existing and evolving framework for professional ethics. Therefore, loan applicants would not be subject to cases of entrapment by tenders and the IRS. Individual firm databases are more reliable for retrieving and sending income tax data in a fast and efficient manner than IRS or other agency computers. This is so because the source of data is owned and managed by private industry. This invention provides a new and unique use for data owned by individual firms that creates new revenue streams for the profession and other users such as lenders. It does so in a way that enhances the image of the public accounting profession and the tax preparation profession and provides an answer to real competitive threats. Finally, such a system or apparatus would help keep competition open by providing small and large practitioners with a service that would act to reinforce client relationships by providing efficiency, cost savings, and goodwill in the form of improved service. It is similar to private delivery services competing with the United States Postal Service. Not only does the marketplace have a need for private and public carriers, but also competition keeps the marketplace for such services open and fair. There is a risk that large consolidated firms would eventually dominate this invention as the ease of using technology was met with sheer market size. Using this invention would allow smaller practitioners to continue to assist consumers in a personalized manner while still applying technology in a positive way.